The advent of chemical warfare has made it necessary for the Navy and other U.S. military services to utilize methods to decontaminate surfaces of aircraft, ships and other equipment, particularly the electrical equipment so as to remove strong toxic chemical agents from the surface of equipment. At the present time strong chemical agents are removed, when it is possible to remove them from painted metal surfaces and bare metal surfaces commonly in use in the Navy and in other U.S. service equipment by physical washing or by hydrolyzing, oxidizing, or breaking up the molecules of toxic or hazardous material. The molecular degradation technique is accomplished by using very strong chemicals that also attack the surfaces on which the toxic materials reside. Many strong caustic materials such as sodium hydroxide, calcium hypochloride, or strong solvents and other related chemical decontamination agents well known in the art have been used. The use of any of these strong decontamination agents results in corrosion, stress cracking, paint degradation and in general deterioration of the surface. Some of these strong decontamination chemicals have a short useful life and must be mixed immediately prior to use to use in achieving maximum efficiency
In the prior art, methods of decontamination and cleaning surfaces to remove toxic chemical materials use mechanical agitation where abrasion must take place in order to assure intimate contact between the chemicals to insure decontamination. In addition a great deal of close manual supervision is required in close proximity to the contaminated surface. In the process of decontamination personnel usually wear and in fact must wear protective suits and closed air breathing equipment to assure adequate personnel protection. Even so there is considerable hazard to personnel in the decontamination of chemical agents from the surfaces of military equipment.
Therefore it should be clear that chemical warfare agents that are present on the surface of military hardware pose a serious threat to the safety of personnel who must operate, service or otherwise have contact with or be in the vicinity of the equipment. These warfare agents may come from a variety of sources such as from accidents, overspray, testing, or from actual attack by adversaries.
Therefore it should be apparent to one skilled in the art that immediate utilization and rapid turn around of military aircraft and mechanical equipment that may have been contaminated by chemical agents particularly chemical warfare agents is desirable.
The method and processes of this invention allows the use of a strippable polymer film to immobilize and absorb chemical agent this immobilization absorption and cleaning away of the agent allows and permits the use of contaminated equipment for example an airplane that has been sprayed with a chemical warfare agent. In the process the aircraft maybe used in a contaminated state when treated with the crosslinked solid polymer coating of this invention and at some later date the polymer film containing the chemical warfare agent can be removed from the aircraft and disposed of. Unlike the prior art methods of removing toxic chemical agents from equipment surfaces there is no need for the use of mechanical agitation or abrasion.